madonna

The dress that Madonna wore in the 1985 "Material Girl" video is just one of the items being auctioned off during The Fame Bureau's Rock and Roll sale on April 28. The original costume including the long satin gloves has an estimate of £60,000-80,000. And how's this for a piece of Madonna history, you can also bid on her gold American Express card (cut in half of course) that she used during the late 1980s.

The auction also includes Beatles memorabilia, signed guitars and a never-heard before recording from Jimi Hendrix including tracks for his Electric Ladyland and the Dylan track 'Tears of Rage' The tapes are expected to sell for £100,000 - £150,000.

Madonna has signed a contract to buy a four-story brick townhouse on East 81st Street in NYC for about $40 million, sources tell the New York Post. Reminiscent of a London townhouse, the 12,000-sq.-ft., 26-room classic Georgian residence (above) is notable for its extraordinary 57-foot width, making it one of the widest houses on the Upper East side. It features 13 bedrooms, 14 baths, a 3000-sq.ft. garden bordered by tall trees, rhododendron bushes and roses, and has a double-car garage, another Upper East Side rarity.

The historic mansion features a 38' x 22' drawing room with tall south windows overlooking the garden, a paneled dining room off the garden terrace, an intimate library, 11' ceilings, 9 fireplaces, a Georgian staircase, an elevator, a wine cellar with a grotto, and space for a rooftop garden. A portion of the townhouse, which currently functions as separate living quarters with its own entry, can be combined with the main residence and probably will be.

Madonna plans major renovations including significant security upgrades. "The townhouse is perfect for Madonna," a source tells the paper. "She's trying to recreate London in New York City, and this is in the style of a London townhouse." Meanwhile, the pop star is said to be searching for an English country house-style estate in the horse country of the East End of Long Island or Westchester, north of the city. As we reported recently, she has also been renting a mansion in Palm Beach.

Aging pop chameleon Madonna has reportedly moved into a lavish Palm Beach mansion (above) with her 22-year-old boytoy, Brazilian male model Jesus Luz. Madonna, 50, signed a $50,000 month-to-month lease on the 10,000-sq.-ft. house, located at he posh Palm Beach Polo and Country Club in Wellington, which is on the market for $6.5 million, the Palm Beach Post reports. The fully furnished five bedroom, seven bath mansion once belonged to BET network co-founder Sheila Johnson and is now owned by a Virginia-based private investor.

Madonna first spent two weeks in Palm Beach in January with her personal trainer and returned to hang out with polo superstar and Ralph Lauren model Nacho Figueras, who's helping her learn to play polo, the paper reports, noting she's considering buying the house. The Real Estalker adds that the back of the Spanish Colonial-style house faces the golf course and opens to a long covered terraced with gauzy curtains, a swimming pool, spa, pool pavilion and outdoor kitchen. Madonna and Jesus recently appeared in a remarkably racy photo shoot for W magazine.

Strappy, structured, and neutral, the Metallic Soft Madonna Boston Bag is one of those great-for-everyday bags. By Versace, it's made up of woven metallic grained leather with a quilted signature Greek key pattern. Bands with gold buckle hardware criss cross in every direction, accented by rolled leather handles, protective feet on the bottom, and zipper closure on the top. The interior is lined in satin and has a zip pocket. Logos are subtle but everywhere (on the front buckle and zipper pulls) so there will be no confusion as to your designer style. $4,395

On March 23rd, online jewelry retailer Bidz.com will auction off a gold and diamond tiara designed by the late Gianni Versace to benefit the Aid for AIDS charity. The one-of-a-kind tiara, which contains over 1,200 diamonds and is worth an estimated $3 million, has been worn by celebrities including Madonna, Amber Valletta and Donatella Versace. The opening bid for the precious piece is $699,000. The Versace Tiara won the famous De Beers Diamonds International Award in 1995 due to the meticulous detail and craftsmanship Gianni Versace put into creating the piece.

The tiara, the star of Versace's famous Atelier Collection, has previously been held only by private collectors. This is the first time in the history of the piece that it is being made available to the public for purchase. A substantial amount of the funds raised from the online auction will go to Aid for AIDS, a non-profit premier service provider for Los Angeles County whose mission is to provide direct financial assistance and critical support for the necessities of life to those impoverished and disabled by HIV/AIDS. Click here for more info.

While many high-end boutiques are experiencing a severe downturn, L.A.'s "luxury erotic emporium" Coco de Mer is busier than ever, with an increasing quotient of sex-starved celebs. The Melrose Avenue shop sells a wide range of goods including lingerie, books, oils, housewares and luxurious sex toys and accessories, including a $10,000 14kt gold and diamond vibrator. Angelina Jolie was spotted shopping there just the other day (though we don't know what she splurged on). Other celebs including Madonna, Kate Moss, Salma Hayek and Sienna Miller have also been by to pick up something saucy for, ahem, entertaining at home.

The shop is owned by Justine and Sam Roddick, daughters of Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, who opened the original Coco de Mer in London in 2001. The shop's clever, opulent design features a "Confessional" room attached to the dressing room providing a private view of your partner trying on lingerie. All of their products are made in consideration of the environment and human rights, and their policy is to invest in the work of local talent as well as small Fair Trade projects or cottage industries. The Roddicks are "committed to enabling individuals to use sex as an instrument to transform their own existence."

If you ever doubted Madonna's devotion to Kabbalah (and how could you really, she's been wearing that red string for years), her donations make a pretty strong statement. Fox News reports on the tax filings for her Ray of Light Foundation for 2007 which show that the singer have away $3.1 million. Most of that money, $2.6 million went to the Kabbalah Center of Los Angeles. She gave no money to her other charity, Raising Malawi, in 2007, even though that was the year she adopted her son David Banda from that country. Madonna has also given other donations including $250,000 to Mobilization Against AIDS.

It will be interesting to see what her 2008 tax filings will reveal although her biggest outgo this year was to the Guy Ritchie freedom fund.

If you are at Madonna's Christmas table you'll be drinking metal this year. The Telegraph reports that Madonna has spent £5,000 (around $7,400) on wine laced with silver for Christmas. She ordered 25 bottles of the 24k Silver wine from Artesanos del Vino in Valencia, Spain. The 24K wine is made by mixing a liquor containing silver dust into a sparkling rosé. There is also a 24K Gold version.Madonna is reportedly spending Christmas in England this year with ex-husband Guy Ritchie and her three children.

The news that Madonna is the latest star to pose for Louis Vuitton has been floating around for a week or so but now there are some more concrete details. The soon-to-be-divorced music icon will be paid a rumored $10 million to be the new face of Louis Vuitton's 2009 marketing campaign. The photographer is Steven Meisel, who Madonna has worked with many times, most famously for her naughty 1992 book, "Sex." View on Fashion has a couple pics of Madonna cozying up to a Louis bag. Filming took place this week at L.A.'s Café Figaro, and the stylist for the session was Marie Amelie Sauve, fashion editor for Vogue Paris and consultant for Balenciaga.

Wow, Madonna is finally turning 50. And what does the superstar music icon who has everything want most for her birthday? The one thing she's been denied, of course: a baby girl adopted from Malawi.

Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie have had a strained marriage as of late due to Madonna's desire to adopt again and Guy's resistance to the idea. Apparently he's changed his mind, though, as reports are he'll be giving Madonna a love letter on her birthday with a written pledge in it to not only allow the adoption but to actively help her fight for it.

And that's not all! Other gifts will include a pledge to spend more time with her in New York, a rose named after her, a 45 minute video of their family put together by Guy, and a bespoke Bulgari necklace and earrings set valued at almost $500,000.

Madonna recently bought some more space in her New York City co-op building and now it looks like she's set to divest herself of some real estate. The Sun reports that Madonna is looking to sell Ashcombe, her English country house in Wiltshire. She and Guy Ritchie bought the home in 2001 for £9 million and are now hoping to put it on the market for £12 million. The eight-bedroom home is listed as a Grade II structure by English Heritage. It was originally part of a larger building and was restored in the 1930s and 1940s by the photographer Cecil Beaton. Madonna and Guy are reportedly selling because they do not spend enough time at the estate especially since Madonna has been recording and touring again. We wish them luck, this is certainly not the best time to be selling England's housing slump is starting to rival the problem we have had in the States.

[Thanks, Lana]

If the nude supermodels in Christie's' upcoming auction are a little out of your price range, but you'd still like to try your hand at starting a photo collection, check out Swann Galleries' NYC sale on May 15. While short on supermodels in their birthday suits, the Swann sale does have some high-profile and provocative celebrity pix at considerably lower prices than the Christie's event.

Highlights include Francesco Scavullo's 1984 portrait of Sting, est. $1,800 - $2,200, pictured here; Roy Schatt's 1954 photo of James Dean, est. $1,500 - $2,500; several works by Herb Ritts including a 1986 Madonna portrait, est. $4,000 - $6,000, and a muscle-bound Fred With Tires, 1984, est. $8,000 - $12,000; a 1977 Christopher Makos photo of Andy Warhol, est. $4,000 - $6,000; and Helmut Newton's 1981 full-frontal Sylvia in My Studio, Paris, est. $4,000 - $6,000. Catch a preview below.

Chopard and Madonna worked together once before to create the pavé diamond "Hung Up" necklace she wore on tour for her last album, and now they're in cahoots again. Designed by Chopard co-president Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele, Madonna has two sparkly new pieces of jewelry for her latest album "Hard Candy." The album art features a wrestling theme and on it Madonna wears a gold and diamond knuckle ring that says "M-dolla" in 258 brilliant cut white diamonds with a Chopard floating diamond on the "M," and a Happy Diamonds cross necklace featuring 3 diamonds. The album comes out at the end of this month.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Madonna's former house in Beverly Hills is listed for $17.495 million. The eight-bedroom mansion, shown here, is a Wallace Neff showplace that Madonna bought in 2000 for a reported $6.5 million from Diane Keaton, who had bought in 1996. Madonna listed the house in 2003 for $10.9 million and then reduced it to $8.9 million. The current owners recently refurbished the home. The listing is here.
--Spice Girl Melanie Brown has paid $3 million for a home in the Hollywood Hills, and has sold her Los Feliz home for an undisclosed price (the home she sold was listed at $1,499,000.
--Joely Fisher has reduced the price on her Encino home, down to $3.999 million. It was our estate of the day back June when it was listed at $4.75 million.
--Charlie Sheen's fiancee Brooke Mueller has sold her four-bedroom house in the Hollywood Hills for $2.317 million.
--The official purchase price on Anne Heche's house sale to Matt Olmstead was $3.66 million.
--A Mediterranean-style mansion in Los Feliz area that was owned by actor Lorenzo Lamas from 1996 until 1999 has sold for $4,150,000.
--A three-bedroom house in Beverly Hills that once was owned by the Monkees' Mike Nesmith has been reduced from $5,450,000 to $4,995,000. The property website is here.
--Jack Black has sold a 1,959-square-foot home in the Hollywood Hills for $1,210,000
--Former baseball star Hideo Nomo has sold his condo on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles for $1,200,000.
--A Bel-Air home once owned by Farrah Fawcett is listed for $4,195,000. The listing is here.
--The price for Ursa Major, the architectural beauty once owned by Wilt Chamberlain has been reduced from $11.5 million to $8,950,000. It was our estate of the day last December.
--Model Rachel Hunter and her hockey-player boyfriend Jarret Stoll have paid $3,645,000 for a house in Hermosa Beach.

From the Real Estalker:
--The Shabby Chic home of interior decorator Rachel Ashwell is for rent for in Malibu for $20,000 a month. The listing is here.
--It looks like designer Vera Wang's $35 million Park Avenue apartment has already gone to contract.
--Nic Cage has listed his Bel-Air manor for $35 million.
--Alex Band, of the band The Calling, has put his home in the Outpost Estates are of Los Angeles on the market for $2.995 million. The property website for the very charming for bedroom is here.
-Brad Garrett has dropped the price on his Hidden Hills home to $8,790,000.
--Damien Wayans, actor, director and nephew of Damon Wayans, has put his Los Angeles home on the market for $2.050 million. The listing is here.
--Linda Evans has listed her Beverly Hills home for rent for $14,500. The listing is here.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--As we previously learned, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne sold their Beverly Hills home to Christina Aguilera and hubby and have moved to Hidden Hills.
--Actress Denise Richards is also in Hidden Hills in a new home which had been listed for about $4.6 million.
--More Hidden Hills news, Melissa Etheridge already lived in the community but recently bought a larger house for $5.1 million.
--And one more Hidden Hills story, Graeme Revell, the award-winning film-music composer, just sold his home there for about $8 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters has bought a five-story townhouse in New York for $14.995 million from Coach leather goods president Reed Krakoff.
--News anchor Campbell Brown and her political strategist husband Dan Senor are close to closing on a three-bedroom home in lower North Haven.
--Grey's Anatomy actress Chandra Wilson is buying a three-bedroom residence in Fifth on the Park, the 30-story condo complex going up in Harlem.
--Ex NFL player Tiki Barber is spending about $6 million to connect four adjacent condos at the Miraval complex at 515 East 72nd St.

Also from the NY Post:
--Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have listed their Nashville home for $2.5 million. It is our estate of the day later today.



From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--New York Rangers hockey player Scott Gomez has paid $3.2 million for a duplex penthouse at the Chelsea Mercantile on Seventh Avenue.
--Architect Thom Mayne has paid $2.675 million for a two-bedroom loft at 85 Mercer Street.
--Nobel-prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk has paid $1.8 million for an apartment at 355 Riverside Drive.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Atlanta Hawks rookies Al Horford and Acie Law have both bought homes listed at about $1 million in gated communities on opposite sides of Atlanta. Horford bought a four-story Georgian-style townhouse in norther Atlanta. Law picked up a European-style single-family house in the southern part of the city.
--Actress Arlene Dahl's husband has listed their Sparkill, New York home for $8.5 million. The home was our estate of the day back in January.
--Professional golfer Justin Leonard has a tentative deal to sell his Dallas suburban home for close to his $6.8 million asking price.

Madonna wants her new 13-month old adopted son, David Banda, to grow up with all the comforts his little heart could desire. To this end, she spent about $28,000 (£15,000) on decorations for his nursery and toys for him to play with. Her purchases include a child-sized electric car, a $9,300 (£5,000) rocking horse and a "designer wardrobe." For his room, she installed "giant murals of tigers and lions," a surround-sound stereo system for playing classical music and a set of cotton and cashmere sheets for his bed.

Apparently, some of the residents of David's village in Malawi were shocked to hear of the amount she spent and noted that such an amount "could have paid for 10,000 chickens and 500 goats, or 10 mud huts."